【经典名著阅读】《红字》第八章（下）
Chapter 08 THE ELF-CHILD AND THE MINISTER第八章 小鬼和牧师
"This is awful!" cried the Governor, slowly recovering from the astonishment into which Pearl's response had thrown him. "Here is a child of three years old, and she cannot tell who made her! Without question, she is equally in the dark as to her soul, its present depravity and future destiny! Methinks, gentlemen, we need inquire no further!"“这太可怕了！”总督叫着，渐渐从珠儿的应答所带给他的震惊中恢复过来。“这是个三岁的孩子，可她根本说不出是谁造出了她！毫无疑问，她对自己的灵魂，对目前的堕落，对未来的命运，全然一无所知！依我看，诸位先生，我们无需再问了。
Hester caught hold of Pearl, and drew her forcibly into her arms, confronting the old Puritan magistrate with almost a fierce expression. Alone in the world, cast off by it, and with this sole treasure to keep her heart alive, she felt that she possessed indefeasible rights against the world, and was ready to defend them to the death.海丝特抓住珠儿，强把她拉进自己的怀里，面对着那几乎是满险凶相的清教徒长官。她被这个世界所抛弃，只剩下孤身一人，只有这一件珍宝才能维持她心灵的生存，她感到她有不可剥夺的权利来对抗这个世界，而且准备好维护自己的权利一直到死。
"God gave me the child!" cried she. "He gave her in requital of all things else, which ye had taken from me. She is my happiness!- she is my torture, none the less! Pearl keeps me here in life! Pearl punishes me too! See ye not, she is the scarlet letter, only capable of being loved, and so endowed with a millionfold the power of retribution for my sin? Ye shall not take her! I will die first!"“上帝给了我这个孩子！”她大声说道。“他把她给了我是为了补偿你们从我手中夺走的一切。她是我的幸福！——也分毫不爽地是我的拆磨！是珠儿叫我还活在世上！也是珠儿叫我受着惩罚！你们看见没有？她就是红字，只不过能够受到喜爱，因此也具有千万倍的力量来报应我的罪孽！你们带不走她！我情愿先死给你们看！
"My poor woman," said the not unkind old minister, "the child shall be well cared for!- far better than thou canst do it!"“我可怜的女人，”那不无慈悲的老牧师说，“这孩子会受到很好的照顾的！——远比你能办到的要强。
"God gave her into my keeping," repeated Hester Prynne, raising her voice almost to a shriek. "I will not give her up!"- And here, by a sudden impulse, she turned to the young clergyman, Mr. Dimmesdale, at whom, up to this moment, she had seemed hardly so much as once to direct her eyes.- "Speak thou for me!" cried she. "Thou wast my pastor, and hadst charge of my soul, and knowest me better than these men can. I will not lose the child! Speak for me! Thou knowest- for thou hast sympathies which these men lack- thou knowest what is in my heart, and what are a mother's rights, and how much the stronger they are, when that mother has but her child and the scarlet letter! Look thou to it! I will not lose the child! Look to it!"“上帝把这孩子交给了我来抚养，”海丝特·白兰重复说，嗓音大得简直象喊叫了。“我绝不会放弃她的！”说到这里，她突然一阵冲动，转向了年轻的牧师丁梅斯代尔先生，此前她简直始终没有正眼看过他。“你来替我说一句话嘛！”她说。“你原来是我的牧师，曾经对我的灵魂负责，你比这些人更了解我。我不能失去这个孩子！替我说句话吧！你了解我——而且你还具有这些人所缺乏的同情心！你了解我心里的想法，也了解一个母亲的权利，而当那位母亲只有她的孩子和红字的时候，这种权利就更烟强烈！请你关注一下吧！我绝不会失去这个孩子的！关注一下吧！”
At this wild and singular appeal, which indicated that Hester Prynne's situation had provoked her to little less than madness, the young minister at once came forward, pale, and holding his hand over his heart, as was his custom whenever his peculiarly nervous temperament was thrown into agitation. He looked now more careworn and emaciated than as we described him at the scene of Hester's public ignominy; and whether it were his failing health, or whatever the cause might be, his large dark eyes had a world of pain in their troubled and melancholy depth.这种狂野独特独特的吁请，意味着海丝特·白兰的处境已经把她快逼疯了。于是，那年轻的牧师马上走上前来，他面色苍氏一只手捂住心口——只要他那古怪的神经质一发作，他就会做出这个习惯的动作。他此时的样子，比起上次海丝特示众时我们所描绘的，还要疲惫和憔悴；不管是由于他那每况愈下的健康状况，抑或其它什么原因，他那双又大又黑的眼睛的深处，在烦恼和忧郁之中还有一个痛苦的天地。
"There is truth in what she says," began the minister, with a voice sweet, tremulous, but powerful, insomuch that the hall re-echoed, and the hollow armour rang with it- "truth in what Hester says, and in the feeling which inspires her! God gave her the child, and gave her, too, an instinctive knowledge of its nature and requirements- both seemingly so peculiar- which no other mortal being can possess. And, moreover, is there not a quality of awful sacredness in the relation between this mother and this child?"“她所说的确有道理，”年轻的牧师开口说，他那甜蜜柔和的嗓音虽然微微发颤，却强劲有力地在大厅中回荡着，直震得那空壳铠中部随之轰鸣，“她的话确有道理，鼓舞她的感情也没有错！上帝赐给了她这个孩子，也就赋予了她了解孩子天性和需求的本能——而这孩子的天性和需求看来又是如此与众不同——她作母亲的这种本能别人是不可能具备的。何况，在她们的母女关系之中难道没有一种令人敬畏的神圣之处吗？”
"Ay!- how is that, good Master Dimmesdale?" interrupted the Governor. "Make that plain, I pray you!"“喂！——这是怎么讲，善良的丁梅斯代尔先生？”总督接口说。“我请你把话说得明白些！”
"It must be even so," resumed the minister. "For, if we deem it otherwise, do we not thereby say that the Heavenly Father, the Creator of all flesh, hath lightly recognised a deed of sin, and made of no account the distinction between unhallowed lust and holy love? This child of its father's guilt and its mother's shame hath come from the hand of God, to work in many ways upon her heart, who pleads so earnestly, and with such bitterness of spirit, the right to keep her. It was meant for a blessing; for the one blessing of her life! It was meant, doubtless, as the mother herself hath told us, for a retribution too; a torture to be felt at many an unthought-of moment; a pang, a sting, an ever-recurring agony, in the midst of a troubled joy! Hath she not expressed this thought in the garb of the poor child, so forcibly reminding us of that red symbol which sears her bosom?"“尤其是，”年轻牧师接着说，“如果我们换一个角度来看待这件事，我们岂不是说，那创造了一切肉体的天父，只是随便地承认了一次罪行，而对亵渎的淫秽和神圣的爱情之间毫不加以区别吗？这孩子是她父亲的罪孽和她母亲的耻辱的产物，但却来自上帝之手，面上帝要通过许多方式来感化做母亲的心灵，因此她才这么诚挚地、怀着这么痛苦的精神来祈求养育孩子的极利。她是在祈求祝福，向赐于孩子生命的上帝祈求祝福！毫无疑问，诚如这母亲自己对我们所说，她也是在祈求一种报应；她在祈求一种折磨，让她在意想不到的许多时刻体会到这种折磨；她在祈求一阵剧痛，一下刺扎，一种时时复发的、纠缠着她的快乐的痛楚！在这可怜的孩子的衣服上，她不是表达了她的这种想法吗？这身衣服不是有力地提醒我们那烙进她胸口的红色象征吗？”
"Well said again!" cried good Mr. Wilson. "I feared the woman had no better thought than to make a mountebank of her child!"“还是你说得高明！”好心肠的威尔逊先生叫道。“我本来担心这女人除去拿她的孩子装幌子再也没有更好的想法呢！
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